Human rights and the body

A lecture on Human Rights at the London School of Economics (LSE podcast, UChannel Podcast) gave some food for thought on a long quest of mine - reported here on the blog as well. There is no definitive answer, but on the quest for insights in bioethics, the LSE lecture by Rowan Williams (Archbishop of Canterbury), we come to understand the necessity of connecting human dignity to the body.

The title of the talk is Religious Faith and Human Rights and this gives, in my humble opinion, much less indication of what is to come. It is about human rights all right and Williams applies his faith in order to establish the connection with the human body. However, his argument is lucid and rational enough to be a strong point, regardless of what faith one follows, if any at all. If human rights are about dignity and integrity, this must be applied to the physical part (or whole, if you will) of the human being.

What is the essence of humanity? Is it rationality, ethics, aesthetics, emotions, free will, faith, spirituality? Is it the soul or in so many words, is it in his higher qualities and not in whatever beastly likeness he has to animals? Williams shows the danger of disconnecting the human from his body. before you know it, you open the road for making distinctions among humans, between those who have and those who do not have the higher qualities, whether soul, spirit, ethics, rationality and such. Williams proposes to make human rights, or in other words human dignity (and I might add human integrity) indivisible from the physical presence. When there is a body, there is a human endowed with full rights. transcript of the lecture

Such an approach may give some guidance in issues of capital punishment, abortion, euthanasia, bio-engineering and more.

More LSE:
Nuts and bolts of empire,
Islam and Europe,
Beyond the genome.

More bioethics:
Life and bio-engineering - podcast review,
Bioethics without Christ, please,
A useful map into Bio-Ethics,
Stem Cell Research: Science, Ethics, and Prospects.

138 Podcasts Reviewed

UPDATE: we now have 217 podcasts reviewed. (link)

It is the first of the month again and so I post in alphabetical order all podcasts I reviewed linked to the last post:

1. 12 Byzantine Rulers
2. Africa (Stanford Travel)
   
3. Africa Past and Present
4. American Environmental and Cultural History (Berkeley ESPM 160AC)
5. American History before 1870
   
6. Ancient and Medieval Podcast
7. Are we alone?
8. Arizona, University of: Introduction to Language
   
9. BBC History Magazine
10. Bike Radar
11. Binge Thinking History
12. Bioethics podcast
13. the Biography Show (TPN)
14. Biota Podcast
15. Bommel Hoorspel
16. British History 101
17. Car Talk
    
18. CATS 2 Culture and Technology Studies (UCSD)
    
19. Celtic Myth Podshow
    
20. CFR Podcast
21. Chronicles Radio Dispatches
22. Dan Carlin's Common Sense
    
23. Dan Carlin's Hardcore History
24. David Kalivas' World History
25. Distillations
26. the Economist
27. Engines of our Ingenuity
28. English 117S (Berkeley)
29. Everything Lincoln
30. Existentialism in Literature and Film (Phil 7 - Berkeley)
31. Exploring Environmental History
32. F1Cast
    
33. Fresh Air (NPR)
    
34. From our own Correspondent (BBC)
35. Geography 130 (Berkeley)
36. Geography of World Cultures (Stanford)
37. Global Geopolitics (Stanford)
38. Hank's History Hour
39. Hannibal (Stanford)
    
40. Haring Podcast
41. Historical Jesus (Stanford)
42. History 106B (Berkeley)
43. History 167B (Berkeley)
44. History 181B (Berkeley)
45. History 2311 (Temple College)
46. History 2312 (Temple College)
47. History 4A (Berkeley)
48. History 5 (Anderson - Berkeley)
49. History 5 (Laqueur - Berkeley)
50. History 7B (Berkeley)
51. History according to Bob
52. History Network
53. History of Holland (Librivox)
54. History of Rome
55. History of the International System (Stanford)
56. History Podcast
57. Historypod
58. Historyzine
59. ICT Update
    
60. In Our Time (BBC)
61. In the Media (WNYC)
62. Inspired Minds (Deutsche Welle)
    
63. Interview Vrijdag (VPRO)
    
64. Introduction to German Politics (Oxford)
    
65. Irving Poetry podcast
    
66. ITV
67. Jung Podcast
68. KMTT
69. KQED Forum
70. Language (UCSD)
71. LSE Podcast
    
72. Marathon Interview (VPRO)
73. Matt's Today In History
74. Medieval & Renaissance Studies Events (Virginia Tech)
75. Medieval Podcast
76. Midwest Writer
    
77. Military History Podcast
78. Missing Link
79. MMW 3, the medieval heritage (Chamberlain - UCSD)
80. MMW 3, the medieval heritage (Herbst - UCSD)
81. Muscular Judaism
    
82. My Three Shrinks
    
83. Napoleon 1O1 (TPN)
84. National Archives Podcast
85. Nonviolence (Berkeley PACS 164A)
    
86. Nonviolence today (Berkeley PACS 164B)
    
87. NRC FM
    
88. Only in America
89. Open Source
    
90. OVT (VPRO)
91. Oy Mendele!
92. Parnell's History Podcast
93. Peopletalk's Podcast
94. Physics for future Presidents (Berkeley)
95. Philosophy 103
96. Philosophy 7 (Berkeley)
97. Philosophy Bites
    
98. the Philosophy Podcast
99. Podcasts on Medieval Texts (Virginia Tech)
100. Podwatch
     
101. Prosperity show
102. Radiolab (WNYC)
103. Rav Dovid's
104. Redborne History
105. Religion and Law in the US (UCSD HIUS 155A)
     
106. Religion and Law in the US (UCSD HIUS 155B)
107. Rhetoric 10 (Berkeley)
108. Rpgmp3
109. Sex History Podcast
110. Shrink Rap Radio
111. Šimek 's Nachts (RVU)
112. the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe
113. Social Innovation Conversations
114. Sonic Society
115. Speaking of Faith (APM)
116. Stanford U History
117. Sunday Sundown
     
118. Talking Robots
     
119. TdF London
120. Teaching American History
121. TED Talks
     
122. That Podcast Show
     
123. Times Talks
124. Tudorcast
125. UCLA Israel Studies
     
126. University Channel Podcast (aka UChannel Podcast)
127. Volkskrant Podcasts
128. We the People Stories
129. What is Judaism?
130. Wise Counsel
131. the Word Nerds
132. the Writing Show
133. Wynyfryd's meditation room
134. the Your History Podcast
135. Your Purpose Centered Life
     
136. zencast
137. zoem
     
138. האוניברסיטה המשודרת

If you know of interesting podcasts that you think should be reviewed, please let me know through the comments page. Or send me mail...
Thanks in advance,
Anne Frid de Vries (in one word)
AT
Yahoo DOT co DOT uk

Germany

Here is yet another tip that I got through the great blog of DIY Scholar. She reviews high quality podcasts, just like me, but is more exclusively focussed on University lectures and in addition writes also about books, vodcasts or video and anything else that has to do with free learning.

She has a very good grip on what academic institutions all over the world have to offer and as a result caught up on the British universities of Oxford and Cambridge, who have started to follow their American counterparts and begun to put good courses on line. One of DIY Scholar's mentions is a course on Oxford about German politics since 1945.

A German scholar, Andreas Busch (with hardly an accent it needs to be pointed out) gives this series with historic and legal constitutional background. The podcasts are enhanced with his power point (feed). I am in the third lecture now and like what I hear. A good podcast in political science and also interesting for history buffs such as myself. (And here I try to forget that once upon a time I taught constitutional law - god forbid!)

More Germany:
New Europe, Old Europe,
Antisemitism,
Germany (Berkeley History 167B),
Missing Link from Berlin.

Non Violence readers

Here is a short review for a lecture series that I occasionally listen to. It is a twofold feature, officially named PACS 164A and PACS 164B. In the academic year 2006/2007 Berkeley offered these courses about Non-Violence. The lecturer Michael Nagler uses the first series to explain the philosophy of Gandhi and then proceeds to tell the history of Gandhi non-violent career and then connects to Martin Luther King. The second series intends to reveal non-violence in the current time.

I do not succeed in very persistently follow the lectures. There is an air of self-righteousness I cannot stand for a long time, no matter how hard I want to believe in non-violence. Nevertheless, I do not abandon altogether and so, some time in the far future, I will sum up these podcasts in hindsight. Until then, I'd like to point out again, they are there and deliver also some news. The readers that go with the courses have been published on line so that, everyone who wishes, can follow more closely.

Previously on PACS 164:
Non Violence

The Kingdom of Ghana

Before I tell about a podcast lecture that touches upon the Kingdom of Ghana (not the same as contemporary Ghana) a few words about UCSD. This university delivers some great content that is easily accessible on line. The current courses available contain among others two series about Medieval History (MMW3). My advice to you is to download all lectures as soon as you can, for further use. I found out that UCSD rather quickly tends to archive those courses and then empties the feed. This happened for example to the course CATS 2 about the interaction of science, religion, culture and society. The course was given earlier this year and has been removed, before I could finish it.

Now to Ghana. This medieval kingdom is touched upon in the UCSD series MMW 3, more specifically in the series by Professor Herbst in lecture 15 (May 20th, 2008). Mostly, Africa has been tribal, but a kingdom could come into existence because of trade. Trade became possible as soon as the Arabs and Berbers figured out, how to cross the Sahara with camels. With the camels they brought in salt from the salt pans in the Sahara and traded it, most importantly for gold. Ghana was a kingdom situated roughly where today are Mauretania and Mali. The gold was not from their soil, they got it from peoples further south. With trade, also Islam reached this part of the world. Soon the elite of the Kingdom of Ghana became Muslims.

I was wondering whether also in earlier times gold made it from West-Africa to the rest of the world. Maybe through Egypt or Ethiopia. There are so many questions and so few podcasts with answers. Maybe there are very few sources, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was also little research. Africa still lies largely undiscovered.

More MMW 3:
Gupta History,
World history guided by the religions,
World history outside the European box,
Making of the Modern World - UCSD,
UC San Diego's podcast courses.

Bob on Tours - history podcast review

The most productive of all history podcasts is History according to Bob. Bob Packett is a college history professor, who uses his spare time to crank out straightforward podcast episodes on a daily basis. He touches on the widest variety of subjects imaginable, but does this as part of various programmatic lines he commits to. For example, he has embarked upon a series to tell the history of the Franks. After many episodes, he has reached the first big known climax: Charles Martel's victory at the battle of Tours.

Recently we have had another podcast, with David Levering Lewis, touching upon this subject. (review) This took a detached, if Muslim, perspective on the battle. Bob, of course, takes the Frankish, Christian perspective of Charles Martel. He dedicated two podcasts to Charles Martel personally and one to the Battle of Tours. The latter, was actually an older podcast he had done many months ago, Bob has reissued. On a side note: we can see how Bob has developed over time.

Bob makes a very meticulous report of the Battle of Tours (732 AD). He sets the stage; showing the Arab advance into Europe, explaining the importance of Tours (holy site) and constructing the position of Martel. Martel was a lot stronger than the Arabs assumed. Martel was a good strategist and he had battle-hardened troops at his disposal. He also managed to rally the Church and through the Church the people to his personal cause. The Ummayyad cavalry was maneuvered in an unfavorable position, but decided to attack anyway. Martel's troops maintained formation and the Arab's were the first to break discipline, thus taking the loss. Ultimately Bob also analyzes the importance and effects of the victory (interestingly, not incoherent with David Levering Lewis) and as usual gives his sources.

Relevant posts:
Islam and Europe,
Making of the Modern World - UCSD,
Islam meets Europe,
The Franks,
Thinking Outside the European Box.